This invention relates to the field of animal husbandry, and specifically to record keeping apparatus for use in swineries.
Pork production on a commercial scale has reached the point where individual preferred practices must be coordinated into an integrated program and executed without fail if wastage is to be avoided of the two controlling factors usable by the husbandman, namely time and feed. A sow must be considered dispassionately as a unit for coverting time and feed into viable piglets, and her efficiency in this process must be increased and preserved by all available means.
Practical experience has led to the knowledge that there are particular times in the reproduction cycle of sows when particular changes in feeding, location, and so on, are most conducive to production of large, health litters, and a husbandman who overlooks or mistimes these changes quickly finds his operation moving below the level of profitability. In a large swinery, it is difficult to carry in memory all the data relative to the sows, and resort is had to written records identifying each animal by its ear tag number and containing pertinent dates and other useful data. Retrieval of this information on demand, and ready access to the data in convenient, usable form are very important.